DETROIT, May 13 (Reuters) - General Motors ( GM ) and

battery partner LG Energy Solution are planning to

start commercial production of lower-cost cells for future

electric vehicles at a U.S. facility starting in 2028, the

companies said on Tuesday.

The cells will have a lithium manganese-rich (LMR)

chemistry, which GM says is lower cost than the nickel-rich

cells used today, but will still give customers the range they

want in future electric trucks and full-size SUVs. The cells

will also be prismatic versus the current pouch structure,

reducing the number of parts in the battery pack by more than

50%, according to GM.

The Detroit automaker, which now has 12 electric vehicles in

its lineup, is trying to lower its battery costs to enable cost

parity with its gas-powered products by adding new types of

cells and chemistries in those cells.

"We're adopting flexible chemistries for the best balance of

range, performance and affordability," said Kurt Kelty, GM's

vice president of battery, propulsion and sustainability, during

a media briefing on the announcement. "My mission here is to get

as many EVs on the road as possible. We need to get price parity

with (internal combustion engine vehicles) and then this thing's

just going to take off."

The LMR cells will be made at one of the two LG-GM

joint-venture Ultium Cells battery plants the companies have in

Ohio and Tennessee. With the LMR prismatic cells, GM expects to

offer more than 400 miles of range in a single charge on an

electric truck, "while significantly reducing our battery

costs," Kelty said.

GM is expecting to reduce its battery pack costs by $30 per

kilowatt-hour in 2025, but it hasn't said how much its

per-kilowatt-hour costs are.

GM is also planning to offer vehicles with lithium-iron

phosphate-based cells that are also lower cost than the nickel

cells. Kelty said GM will release more information soon.

While GM aims to be the first automaker to commercially

deploy LMR batteries in its electric vehicles, crosstown rival

Ford Motor ( F ) is also working on deploying the technology,

according to a recent blog its director of electrified

propulsion engineering wrote on LinkedIn.